Twelve GCE O/L candidates down with dengue

The Health Ministry yesterday said 12 students sitting the GCE O/L examination were being treated for dengue at the Infectious Diseases Hospital (IDH).

Health Ministry spokesman Nipun Ekanayake said that steps had been taken to set up an examination centre for them at the Hospital while IDH doctors were paying close attention to them.

The total number of dengue cases from January to the second week of this month was 47,900 with 77 deaths.

The mosquito control programme continued in high risk areas with 77,728 premises being inspected within the last three days.

The programme began on Monday (12). Some 1,140 premises with mosquito larvae were detected during inspections while steps had been taken to correct 9,188 sites. About 2,882 had been given notices while legal action taken against 616, Ekanayake said.

The total number of premises inspected was 60,490 in the Western Province and mosquito larvae had been detected in 639 of them. About 1,889 persons had been issued notices and legal action taken against 402 of them, the Health Ministry spokesman said.

According to the National Dengue Control Programme (NDCP) a majority of mosquito larvae had been detected in houses and their environments (1,028) besides 68 school.

Consultant Community Physician National Dengue Control Unit (NDCU), Dr Preshila Samaraweera said on Wednesday (14) that the total number of cases last year was 29,000 with 54 deaths while in 2014 the number of dengue cases had topped 47,500 with a death toll of 99.